Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Dholakia

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Lords Hansard - part two & Report stage
Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the noble Baroness in Amendment 89, for the reasons she has outlined. I think the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, in this Report stage seems to get the short straw every time. I have a question for my noble friend the Minister about the role of the CPS when deciding to prosecute. It has to apply the test of public interest. Is the very young age of a defendant a proper consideration for the CPS when making that public interest test?

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 89 is also in the name of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who cannot be with us today but has faithfully promised to support it. I have a Private Member’s Bill on this same subject which is awaiting its Second Reading. Suffice to say, on at least two previous occasions, it has gone through all its stages in this House, but the general election intervened last time and halted its progress. Let me assure the House that the Bill is not going to be put into the long grass. I will come back again and again until we find some success in its implementation.

I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, for her support of this amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for his kind words, and my noble friend Lord German, who took up this issue in Committee when I was hospitalised on that particular day.

The amendment is designed to raise the country’s unusually low age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12. At present in England and Wales, children are deemed to be criminally responsible from the age of 10. This provision was last amended over 50 years ago, in 1963, when the age of criminal responsibility was raised from eight to 10 by the Children and Young Persons Act of that year. This means that children who are too young to attend secondary school can be prosecuted and receive a criminal record. A 10 year-old who commits a “grave crime”, which includes serious, violent and sexual crimes but can also include burglary, will be tried in an adult Crown Court. A child of 10 or 11 who is accused with an adult will also be tried in the Crown Court.

The age of criminal responsibility in the United Kingdom is the lowest in Europe. In Ireland, in 2006 the age was raised to 12, with exceptions for homicide, rape or aggravated sexual assault. Even in Scotland, where the age of criminal responsibility is particularly low at eight, legislation in 2010 provided that children cannot be prosecuted below the age of 12. Outside the British Isles, the age of criminal responsibility is invariably higher: in Holland it is 12; in France it is 13; in Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia and Romania it is 14. In most European countries it ranges between 14 and 18. Across Europe, the average age is 14.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has repeatedly stated that our minimum age of criminal responsibility is not compatible with our obligation under international standards of juvenile justice and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. In a statement in 1997 the committee said:

“States parties are encouraged to increase their lower minimum age of criminal responsibility to the age of 12 years as the absolute minimum age and to continue to increase it to a higher age level”.


In subsequent reports in 2005 and 2007, the committee reiterated that a minimum age below 12 is not internationally acceptable. Recently the committee recommended that the UK should

“raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility in accordance with acceptable international standards”.

Taking 10 to 11 year-olds out of the criminal justice system will not mean doing nothing with children who offend. It would mean doing what other countries do with 10 and 11 year-old offenders; it would mean doing what we do with delinquent nine year-olds. In other words, it would mean dealing with the causes of these children’s offending through intervention by children’s services teams.

In the majority of cases where court proceedings are necessary, it would mean bringing children before family court proceedings, which can impose compulsory measures of supervision and care. In the most serious cases this can mean detention for significant periods in secure accommodation, but this would be arranged as part of care proceedings, rather than as a custodial punishment imposed in criminal proceedings.

Those who oppose increasing the age of criminal responsibility often argue that children of 10 to 12 are capable of telling right from wrong, as though it automatically follows that they should therefore be dealt with in criminal courts, but this does not logically follow. Most six year-olds have a sense of right and wrong, but no one suggests that they should be subject to criminal prosecution. In 2012, the Centre for Social Justice, which was set up by the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, produced a report on the youth justice system entitled Rules of Engagement: Changing the Heart of Youth Justice. It said:

“There is now a significant body of research evidence indicating that early adolescence (under 13-14 years of age) is a period of marked neurodevelopmental immaturity, during which children’s capacity is not equivalent to that of an older adolescent or adult. Such findings cast doubt on the culpability and competency of early adolescents to participate in the criminal process and this raises the question of whether the current MACR, at ten, is appropriate.”


The evidence from international research is overwhelming. There is extensive evidence from neuroscientists, psychologists and psychiatrists demonstrating the developmental immaturity of young children. The Royal Society, in its report Neuroscience and the Law, concluded in 2011 that,

“it is clear that at the age of ten the brain is developmentally immature, and continues to undergo important changes linked to regulating one’s own behaviour.”

The Royal College of Psychiatrists has expressed the view, based on similar evidence, that our age of criminal responsibility is too low. The research shows that children of 10 and 11 have less ability to think through the consequences of their actions, less ability to empathise with other people’s feelings, a greater level of impressionability and suggestibility, and less ability to control impulsive behaviour. So while 10 year-olds may know that stealing something is wrong, their ability to apply that knowledge to their actions will be very different from that of an 18 year-old. This does not mean that children aged 10 or 11 have no responsibility for their actions, but on any reasonable interpretation of the evidence they must be regarded as less responsible than an older adolescent or an adult. It cannot be right to deal with such young children in a criminal process which assumes a capacity for mature, adult-like decision-making.

The Beijing rules on juvenile justice state that the age of criminal responsibility,

“should not be set at too low an age level, bearing in mind the facts of emotional, mental and developmental immaturity.”

The official commentary to the rules states that,

“there is a close relationship between the notion of responsibility for delinquent and criminal behaviour and other social rights and responsibilities”.

It is therefore significant that in no other area of the law, whether it is the age for paid employment, the age for buying a pet, the age of consent to sexual activity, or the age for smoking and drinking, do we regard children as fully competent to take informed decisions until later in adolescence. The age of criminal responsibility is an anomalous exception. In relation to the age of consent to sexual activity, for example, we regard any purported consent as irrelevant in order to protect children from abuse or immature sexual experimentation. It is completely illogical that we regard immaturity in this context as worthy of protection by law, but we take a diametrically opposite approach when it comes to criminal responsibility.

A 30 year-old with the mental age of a 10 year-old child would probably be regarded as unfit to plead, so why do we see a child of 10 as capable of participating in the criminal justice process? The illogicality of our current law is increasingly recognised. The Law Commission concluded in its report Unfitness to Plead that the age of criminal responsibility is not founded on any logical or principled basis and that

“there may be sound policy reasons for looking afresh at the age of criminal responsibility”.

Railways: Brighton to London Line

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Dholakia

Thursday 6th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, it is great that there are local initiatives to reopen lines—to make my department think carefully about that—but there has to be a good business case.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that Gatwick Airport is a very popular destination for those travelling between London and Brighton? The number of passengers has increased. Secondly, does not the maximum use of the line between Victoria and Brighton demonstrate the need to preserve an alternative method, especially when this expansion of the Brighton line is exhausted?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I fully accept that the Brighton line is running at capacity, but this particular scheme will do nothing to relieve the bottleneck. For instance, the path between Sevenoaks and Orpington is just twin track and there are no more train paths available at the peak period.

Identity Documents Bill

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Dholakia

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

I think that it is appropriate for the Minister to carry on with the rest of her speech, answer the other questions that noble Lords have asked and wait to see whether further inspiration arrives.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, may I make a suggestion? Would it not be appropriate for the House to adjourn to enable the Minister to seek the advice that is being asked for and then the House could resume soon after that?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, my noble friend has numerous points to answer. Let us hear what she says and whether she can convince the House to agree with another place.

Severe Winter Weather

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Dholakia

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement in your Lordships’ House. I stress how important it is to take note of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham. The problem that we suffer is a lack of communication. To anybody who listened to the Radio 4 interviews with passengers at Heathrow and Gatwick, the information that was repeatedly conveyed was that none of them knew what was going on.

A few weeks ago, at the beginning of the month, we had similar snowfall and people are really tired of not knowing how our rail network is working in this country. At Victoria Station, it was obvious that none of the indicators was working and the announcements were almost impossible to decipher. Whenever one got the idea that a train was leaving, one jumped into that train, sat for half an hour and was then told that the train was no longer going. One moved on to another train, only to be told that the driver was no longer available. One then moved on to another train where they said it would be another half an hour. By the time one gets home, it has taken three or three and a half hours to travel a distance of 15 miles.

This just will not do. It is time that those in authority provided adequate information to those who use services. That has not happened at Heathrow, it does not happen at many of our stations and it is about time that this matter is put right.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am grateful for my noble friend’s comments. Ministers were not happy about the situation on communicating the transport opportunities to people two weeks ago. It is inconceivable that these problems will not be considered in the new year.

Intelligence and Security Services: Treatment of Detainees

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Dholakia

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords—

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I think that we should hear from the Cross Benches—or, rather, the Lib Dems first.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, I join my noble friend the Leader of the House in paying tribute to those who have lost their lives in recent days in Afghanistan. The torture allegation has been a shameful episode for the good name of our country and we welcome this inquiry. I hope that it will be able to look at why this has taken such a long time and that it will question the previous Administration about why the inquiry was not held much earlier. We are aware of the constraints placed on the coalition Government, as a number of outstanding issues need to be resolved, but I have two questions for the Minister. First, does the payment of compensation before the inquiry has reported compromise it in any way? Secondly, the Statement mentions our co-operation on intelligence matters with other countries, particularly the USA. Would it be possible for the inquiry to take evidence from those countries that are involved in the torture allegations?